Blight News

Considering the ongoing Denise Viera blight saga, this is interesting. I'll follow up on this more later, but in the meantime, take a look at this press release from city hall.

Eddie A. Perez

Mayor

HARTFORD'S
ANTI-BLIGHT ORDINANCE STRONGER AND MORE EFFECTIVE

---NEWS RELEASE---

(July 16, 2009) --- Mayor Eddie A. Perez is applauding the
incredible community support that helped pass a tougher anti-blight ordinance
for the City of Hartford.The Mayor introduced the changes and City
Council passed the amendments that give the city more control and enforcement
power regarding this important quality of life issue in our community.

Mayor Perez says, "Thanks to the collaborative effort of
several community groups like HART and Hartford 2000 as well as key city
departments, we have now added teeth to our tenacious efforts to reduce blight
in all of our neighborhoods."

The key changes include being able to issue citations for a
wider variety of blight; clarifying, defining, and specifying examples of
blight; and increasing and enhancing enforcement powers.

For instance, chronic properties--- identified as having
things like hanging gutters, tall grass, broken windows, holes in the walls and
roof, etc--- are now subject to this broader definition of blight and thus
would be subject to multi-department inspections (health, fire marshal,
housing, etc).If the property owner
does not comply, the city now has greater authority and ability to take action
against them.The fine is $100 per day
per violation.